Bennett, Seahawks dominate awful 49ers for 20-3 win

It took Marshawn Lynch vomiting into a garbage can during the first quarter – then romping to his best game since the NFC championship in January.

It took Michael Bennett’s personal sack festival – with a new dance, biceps-kissing and taunts to further enrage the booing, ticked-off natives.

“I was showing off my muscles to my wife,” Bennett said, adding his changed-up his sack dance to keep the NFL happy after mandates to stop “sexually-suggestive” dances such as his usual hip shimmy.

It took as dominant a first half as they’d had since … well, the last time they’d played here.

Whatever. Finally, the Seattle Seahawks finished.

Then again, how could they not against these malfunctioning 49ers?

Lynch overcame his latest early-game episode of nausea and getting personal with a red garbage can at the bench to romp for 122 yards on 27 carries and the game’s first score. Bennett had a career-best 3½ sacks and fellow end Cliff Avril continued his outstanding season with 1½ sacks for a defense that smashed Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers offense into ineptitude. And the Seahawks recovered from consecutive blown leads and losses by rolling to a 20-3 victory over San Francisco that should have been a lot more at boo-filled Levi’s Stadium.

“It felt like a really normal Seahawks night,” Carroll said.

“That was the way it was supposed to be.”

This was the 19th consecutive game the Seahawks had a lead during the fourth quarter. They held it to win for just the third time in the last nine games.

The Seahawks’ six sacks were a season high. They have sacked Kaepernick 24 times in seven games, as Seattle won for the fourth consecutive time over San Francisco.

The combined scores of the last three wins over the 49ers: 56-13.

“The quarterback held the ball today,” Bennett said. “So it just gave me some time to get there.”

As receiver Doug Baldwin said, this Seahawks performance “wasn’t clean, it wasn’t perfect.”

But it didn’t have to be against a 49ers team that looked and played even more meekly than San Francisco did last season here while rolling over to Seattle in a 19-3 loss. That one was so bad the 49ers chief executive, Jed York, tweeted an apology to the team’s fans.

He may need to hire a plane to pull an “I’m sorry” banner over the Bay Area after this one. San Francisco managed just 142 yards of offense, its fewest since November 2006.

Russell Wilson was a senior in high school in Richmond, Virginia, then.

Wilson completed 18 of 24 passes for 235 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions and five sacks. He was exquisite for most of the first half, having at one point in the second quarter a quarterback rating of 155.8. His best throw was the prettiest offensive play of the season so far for Seattle (3-4), an arching throw with rare, good protection. It found rookie Tyler Lockett in stride just past a Niners defender inside the goal line for a 43-yard touchdown late in the second quarter. That made it 17-0.

It should have been a lot more than that. But if nothing else, the Seahawks established how for all their problems so far this season they are eons ahead of the 49ers (2-5). San Francisco managed just 142 yards and punted nine times to sunk firmly to the bottom of the NFC West.

Wilson threw an interception to end the first half trying to fit a throw into Doug Baldwin at the back of the end zone. He threw another one forcing a deep ball into double coverage to Jermaine Kearse at the San Francisco 12. Wilson narrowly avoided a third interception when he threw behind Jimmy Graham (two catches, 31 yards) with four minutes left at midfield.

So it could have – should have – been at least 34-3, if not for Wilson’s first two-interception game since last Nov. 9 against the New York Giants.

The first half was as complete a domination as the Seahawks have had since … well, they were here last Thanksgiving, Seattle’s 19-3 win that ended with Wilson and Richard Sherman drawing San Francisco ire for gnawing on turkey at midfield immediately afterward.

The 49ers were the turkeys this Thursday.

The Seahawks sacked Kaepernick four times in the first half, tying the most they’d had in a game before Thursday. San Francisco had 17 net yards passing on 17 drop backs to throw. One of those ended with Kaepernick overthrowing Anquan Boldin by five yards into the 49ers’ bench, beaning a team trainer who then needed medical attention. Another way-errant Kaepernick throw narrowly missed a Niners cheerleader. She was 10 yards beyond the boundary.

The Seahawks began the evening fixing, at least temporarily, one of their biggest problems on offense – though it was a struggle like the rest of this season so far.

Lynch’s twisting dive over the goal line from a yard out for his second touchdown of the season ended a 12-play, 61-yard drive to begin the game. Six of those plays came inside the San Francisco 4-yard line.

It was the fifth touchdown in 15 red-zone trips this season for Seattle, and just its second in the last 10 such drives. It was last in NFL entering Thursday with a meager 28-percent touchdown rate in the red zone.

So do the Seahawks have their vibe back after one, steamrolling night in the South Bay and heading into the Nov. 1 game at Dallas?

“We’re on the verge,” safety and team leader Kam Chancellor said after spying Kaepernick much of this night. “We’re in the right direction.”

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 10:45 PM with the headline "Bennett, Seahawks dominate awful 49ers for 20-3 win."